Life of the Mind
by Progenitus
Summary: Camille had found him at the grocers one day, and he was the most intriguing, impossible man she had ever met. [Reid/OC]
1. Life of the Mind

**Chapter 1**

**Life of the Mind**

___Hannah Arendt_ once said: 'The emotions I feel are no more meant to be shown in their unadulterated state than the inner organs by which we live.'

Camille was rather alarmed to find that the guy she had been scripting the perfect conversation starter for, had gone missing.

She found him at the grocers. She had developed a habit of going there at the odd hour of seven thirty in the evening after she took a wrong turn and discovered this shop on the way home from work. At any normal hour, there would have been a hoard of stampeding people, as this was in the busiest part of town. However, few came at a half hour before store closing, as all the freshest produces were gone, and the light was dimming outside as well. Camille had no choice in the matter, however, since she rarely left work early enough to make it to the grocers to begin with. Being an aspiring lawyer really was not as glamorous a job as TV shows made it to be. She did try her best to make it here every day though. Not because she needed a daily infusion of arugula and instant noodles, but because one of the most interesting people she had ever come across came here at this hour.

He had hair close to being chocolate but not quite there yet, holding a loose wave, and slightly longer than most men wore it. He had a haircut sometimes last week, though. He intermittently wore glasses—the ones with a thick black rim at the top of the glass panels, the kind that Camille remembered seeing on her college professors. He always wore a tie, usually skinny. She had never looked into his eyes long enough to figure out each speck of pigment, but they were a nice, warm chestnut color. He shaved meticulously, so that even by seven at night there was still no hint of a shadow spanning across his cheeks. His chin turned upwards ever so slightly, giving him an adorable small bump at the base of his face. He was lanky in figure, tall, but not intimidatingly so. He had a funny walk, with more pressure on his left foot, perhaps as a result of the weight of his messenger bag on his right shoulder, but he walked briskly and with purpose. He had a habit of scanning everything with words on it, be it a sticker, a poster, an ad or the ingredients table. He fidgeted with his watch while he waited in line, which he wore over his sleeve.

As you might be able to tell, Camille had observed this man very closely. She thought it might be borderline creepy, but considered it a rather harmless sort of stalking if you would call it that.

Camille had found him on a dreary Wednesday two weeks ago, looking in the same aisle for frozen food. She had entered the aisle with a list of the necessities of life on her phone—consisting mainly of waffles and pre-cooked packages—and behold, there he stood, in front of the pizza section, holding the door open, with a small frown as he browsed the boxes and perhaps trying to decide if the sausage one would taste better than the four-cheese blend one, with one hand pushing up his glasses a little higher on that thin, cleanly sculpted bridge of a nose, and the hair falling into his eyes ever so slightly, and the corners of his mouth stretched downwards subconsciously—and Camille felt her heart stretch out a little in response.

She didn't really eat pizza, but that wasn't going to stop her.

Camille smoothed out her hair (she was glad she visited the saloon to touchup her apricot blonde dye job), half wished that she had not changed out of her work heels into flats, and advanced to pick out some pizza.

She had been reaching to check out a rather strange box of anchovies pizza (anchovies!), and was about to ask the man for a recommendation when he suddenly spoke.

"Anchovies, that's the least favorite topping in America, although in Russia, they serve pizza with mockba, a combination of sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon and onions. Americans consume two hundred fifty one billion seven hundred seventy thousand pounds of pepperoni as toppings per year though."

Camille was too surprised to react, and in her bewildered pause, the man smiled sheepishly—his lips thinned a little and curved perfectly and oh wait he was saying something—

"…Carried away, sorry," and left hurriedly.

The 'Wait' was resting on her lips, but she couldn't speak them, and Camille watched the glorious man walk away. If she had not been enchanted by his face and figure, then she certainly was by this awkward display of knowledge and also misplaced friendliness.

Camille's best friend in college always said she went for the weird ones.

So, fulfilling the friend's prophecy, Camille threw the anchovies pizza into her basket, and walked stealthily after him, feasting her eyes on scalloping waves of hair and the movements of his limbs in a casual tweed blazer. She felt like it would be strange to catch up and start a conversation though, so when he paid and left the store, she stayed to pick out the groceries that she actually came here for.

But she saw him again the day afterwards. And the day after that. In fact, she saw him every day that she came (which was every day except the two times that she really could not bring the work back home with her).

And then all of the sudden, he disappeared.

It had been a full week since she last saw him, and Camille was starting to get worried. Perhaps he got into some sort of trouble? Or what if he had an accident and was in the hospital? Or—the worst of the worst—he had moved? She could file a missing persons report, but she doubted the police would take her very seriously.

She didn't even know his name.

What she did know, however, was that this man came at the precise half-hour for two whole weeks, and he couldn't have just _stopped_ for no reason. No, she couldn't accept that. There must have been some horrid reason, some unspeakable tragedy that pulled him away and kept him there. There was no explanation that such a man would simply break out of what seemed like a long term habit. He seemed like a man of routine too, and while his face held enough paleness and eye-bags that he could have passed for a junkie, but he was too smartly dressed for that. Also too cute, but that was a subjective judgment on Camille's part.

So it was with great relief that Camille came on the next Tuesday and found him back in the pizza aisle again, right where he belonged.

* * *

A/N: Extra points for whoever guesses the origin of the title/chapter title! Story cover is an oil by Leonid Afremov.


	2. Off the Beaten Track

**Chapter 2**

**Off the Beaten Track**

_Martin Heidegger once said: 'To enter upon this path is the strength, and to remain on it the feast of thought.'_

Camille gave a happy little sigh, checked her hair and tucked her purse high on her shoulder. As she walked towards him, he gave her a sort of smile, his eyes darting quickly away, as if he wasn't quite sure if he should greet her or pretend she was air like people did to most strangers.

When she approached though, he took a step back, still holding the door to the fridge open, and motioned for her pick out before him.

Camille wanted to give a little scream—when was the last time that she was treated so courteously? All the men at work treated her like a man, which was nice of course, and she tried very hard to become a 'bro', given that it was a male-dominated industry. But being a 'bro' also meant that the heaviest door in the front was hers and hers alone to open, putting all her weight against it to heave and breathing like a working animal. It also meant that she never got to the cafeteria fast enough to get any crab cakes, on the rare occasion they were offered. She had dyed her hair in order to remind herself of her femininity, which seemed to her a somewhat ridiculous yet sadly necessary thing to do.

She pulled her wandering mind back, smiling at the man with more warmth than recommended towards a stranger, and picked out another anchovy pizza.

After taking the pizza box, she lingered at the fridge. Camille quickly racked her brain to think of some line, any of the lines that she played in her head after meeting him, but discovered that her mind was an endless plain of blankness.

The man, who was reaching for the sausages pizza, picked up on her presence and turned towards her.

Their eyes met, and they spoke simultaneously.

"Do you have the time?" She asked.

"Who are you?" He asked.

There was a pause in which both blushed slightly, painfully self-aware. It was a pause just long enough for the man to readjust his watch over his sleeve, and for Camille to unconsciously go through the ends of her hair. Then they both spoke again, at once.

"I'm sorry," she began.

"Seven thirty five," he answered.

Another pause, in which both realized that they had spoken over the other person yet again, and the situation had turned from awkward to ever so slightly comical.

"I'm Camille," she answered now. Then as an afterthought, "Thanks."

"Camille, that's a nice name, like the movie by George Cukor."

"But," she replied, "I was named after the play showing in Broadway back in the day, adapted from the Dumas fils novel."

"Yes," he nodded, "The movie is based on _La Dame aux camélias _as well, except in the movie she is called Dame Camille. It released on December twelfth in 1936. The flower camellia is actually mostly found from the Himalayas east to Indonesia. Did you know that the Chinese and Japanese courts bred it for centuries before it ever came to Europe? It's called the tea flower in Chinese for the leaves of the camellia sinensis is actually used to brew tea. Strangely enough it's also the state flower for Alabama."

"Oh."

A beat.

"I-I'm sorry, this is the second time that I've bothered you with trivial facts," he looked away and examined the flooring.

"Oh don't be, please. I found what you said to be fascinating."

"You do?" He looked backed at her with such a surprised and excited look in his eyes that Camille just wanted for him to speak for seven days and her to listen by his side.

"Of course, it's not every day that somebody tells me something about my namesake that I didn't know," she smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging manner. The man was such a rare blend of goodwill and social awkwardness that she found it endearing. His vast knowledge of pizza toppings and plant genera also helped. Oh, and his hair, Camille loved his hair.

"I'm glad I could do the service," he replied rather formally, still somewhat self-conscious.

Camille got the impression that this didn't happen to him very often. So to cover up his discomfort, she said the first thing that came to her mind, "My parents named me, big Dumas fans. I don't even know if they ever watched that movie. The things that one is never able to learn about one's parents."

"I'm sorry."

She blinked at him, "About what?"

"Your parents."

"My parents? Why?"

"Er," he looked ill at ease now, "You just said that…you parents are alive and well?"

"Yes," what a bizarre question! "They're actually touring Europe right now."

"I assumed that by not able to learn about your parent's movie experience meant that they had passed away, I shouldn't have assumed."

"It's not a problem."

"No it is, you showed no tension at the mention of your parents, I should have picked that up." He seemed genuinely upset over such a small, stranger mistake.

"You're being too harsh on yourself, nobody can read minds—at least I hope not."

Her pathetic attempt to liven the mood flopped as he frowned deeper and said, "No, I'm not. It's a part of my job, and I do have a degree in psychology. I was just too nervous."

A degree in psychology? Perhaps he was an assistant professor, or a psychiatrist? He did not have the look of a psychiatrist to him—beige walls, beige floors, fish tank, soothing decorations—but he did fit the professor stereotype quite well. Camille approved of academic people. That wasn't the most important thing he said, however. "Nervous, you say? About what though?"

"Well," he blushed. Camille found it absolutely adorable. "I had been trying to ask your name for a while now."

Oh wow, Camille thought, this was a lot easier than she thought it would be. So she smiled prettily and asked, "My name? Well perhaps I should start wearing camellias flowers in my hair so that people would know."

"That would only make yourself even more obvious."

'Obvious' was such an odd choice of diction. Camille looked at him and waited for an explanation.

"What I mean is, I would have picked up on you following me around sooner if you had done that."

"What," she gasped out in horror.

"Right, I had been wondering why you were following me."

Oh god, oh god oh _god_, he knew, he noticed, oh god Camille wanted to bury herself up in a grave of sand and bones. Of course he wasn't asking for her name for the same reason that she wanted to know his. Of course the first time that she actually tried to pick up a guy, he sees her as a stalker. Of course. She can't remember the last time she was so embarrassed.

Something about her must have told him about her embarrassment, because the next moment he got a little flustered as well, "I didn't mean to offend—I mean, I'm just very bad at talking to people that I don't know."

"Not at all," she replied weakly.

"Yes I am, and you _are_ offended. The rims of your eyes have widened by half a millimeter, the muscles in your jaw are tightened, and not to mention you do have a very telling blush going there."

Camille couldn't help but smile. "Was that a joke?"

"It got you to smile, so I say yes."

Perhaps all was not lost. She was going to have to be the bold one here, she knew. God knows she had deliberately passed him by enough times to initiate a dozen soulful conversations—and maybe a beer at the pub. In any case, Camille worked up her courage that she normally found easy after a few drinks, and said, "Ah, and what if I say coffee, my funny man?"

"Coffee?" He seemed confused by her boldness, although not a derisive confusion.

"Yes. To atone for offending me." C'mon now, pretty boy, she thought, either be a gentleman and apologize with a coffee, or pick up on the flirting and buy me a coffee. Either case, _say yes_.

He gave her a dimple at the upper corners of his mouth. "Then I would say I would like that very much."

* * *

A/N: Please review and let me know if Reid is being too awkward / friendly / anything!

I kept trying to make him socially awkward, but then realized that he had been dealing with people for so long, and is no longer that boy out of school and the training program at the very beginning of the show. _Then_ I realized that I have no control over what spews out of him...


	3. Beyond Good and Evil

**Chapter 2**

**Beyond Good and Evil**

_Friedrich Nietzsche once said: 'A man with genius is unendurable if he does not also possess at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.'_

There was a coffee shop right across the street, one of those homely looking ones run by them local college kids. Camille had once bought an overpriced mocha from there—it had tasted fairly ordinary and perhaps slightly over-roasted for the price, but she wasn't actually very picky about coffee. It was just one of those things that she picked up on, since all her coworkers commented on coffee as if they were connoisseurs. Coffee was like the second wine to them.

In any case, she had awkwardly proposed that they meet up once they finished their grocery shopping, and he had awkwardly agreed with her. The both of them awkwardly looked at the other afterwards, and together, they awkwardly begun to pick out their groceries.

She had discovered that he liked his pasta with stuffed with veal (_manicotti_, the label had said, and she learned a new Italian word), and showed him that she just put pesto on regular spaghetti. He apparently didn't care for sparkling water though, and she fancied that she saw a disapproving look when she picked up a six-pack of Pellegrino. He did have an adorable sweet-tooth though, and unashamedly put three freshly-baked pies in his cart. She was going to pick up a bottle of Bailey's as cream in her morning coffee, but feared his judgment and therefore abandoned that particular item.

It was even more awkward when the lady cashier mistook them for a couple and nearly started putting his items on her bill. Camille explained with smile that they won't be sharing the bill, and her smile was strained when the lady rolled her eyes and muttered 'These new fads with young couples these days' under her breath.

She hoped that Mr. Psychology didn't hear that.

Camille forgot all about that when he offered to carry some bags for her. Strangely, she did not take offense to his presumption about her strength (he might have been right about the bags hurting her hands, but it didn't mean she liked people pointing it out). Perhaps it had something to do with his glasses, but Camille liked to think that it was because of his genuinely helpful tone, and not something shallow like the way his brown hair flopped in his eyes.

She really preferred black hair. Really.

They had walked out of the grocery store, and immediately saw the dimly lit coffee shop. Camille pointed her chin towards it with a raised eyebrow. Mr. Psychology frowned very, very lightly, but nodded in assertion.

"I know that one should never trust coffee in a shop lit by Byzantine-era oil lamps," Camille apologized, "But it _is_ the only coffee shop in a five-minute walk. Unless," she started hopefully, "You would like to venture further and find a better one?"

"No," he shook his head, "That one is good."

"Ah, okay then," she had replied, unsure of what to say next. A general silence fell over them, and Camille squirmed slightly, shifting bags from one hand to the other. Then she decided to be bold. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

He really had a habit of frowning. "I never gave it."

"Right," she admitted drily, "That was just a roundabout way that people sometimes ask for things."

"Oh." He seemed genuinely surprised. "Reid, Dr. Spencer Reid."

Camille wasn't too fond of the name Spencer—it always reminded her of that article that she saw criticizing that retailer called Spenser's Gifts—but decided that it was a good name nonetheless. Also the doctor part was impressive. So she asked, "A doctor of the academic type, or the cut people up and sew them back up type?"

"The former, most definitely," he replied quickly.

"In psychology, like you mentioned?"

"No, I only have a B.A. in psychology."

She was about to say something about that being useful as well, but he went on talking.

"No, I'm a Doctor in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering. I had considered Classics at one point, and had to explain to a lot of people in Guidance class what that was, but realized that I had read all of the materials. I did learn the languages though, linguistics being a side-project for me in college. Well, the Latin department in CalTech was rather awful, but I made do with it."

At that point Camille was so intrigued as to what Spencer—she could call him Spencer right?—did daily to engage his mind, that she was not even intimidated by his achievements. "Ah, Latin, CalTech isn't known for that."

"No, it is not," he agreed.

Just then, a horrible thought struck Camille—what if this fine specimen had a girlfriend? Then she internally groaned, of course he had a girlfriend, it was silly to presume that a man as interesting and cute as him did not. All the good ones were snatched. Maybe the pies weren't even for him, but rather his children, one five and one seven, named Melanie Klein Reid and Carl Gustav Reid, both of whom were slightly too thin for their age given the pressure from their perfectly-shaped Victoria Secret angel-looking mom. Which was why Mr. Reid here was smuggling pies back for them. Melanie swam competitively, and Carl had a knack for illustration, or as much as first-graders did, which Mrs. Victoria Reid thought was rather unmanly of him, but allowed it slide since Mr. Reid had wooed her once with a carbon sketch of her lovely profile—

The wind-bell on the door chimed as he opened the door for her.

Oh what the hell, it was worth a shot. Maybe Mrs. Victoria had an affair two years ago and had left him with the two children, now gaining more weight than advised by doctors. Camille didn't think she could deal with children—but, well, some things were worth trying for.

The place was decorated in a feel-good sort of way, with dewy peach walls and glowing tangerine furniture. The china pieces were all minimalistic, and the entire place looked like a vignette showroom in Crate & Barrel. The music was a soft indie song, and most of the baristas wore plaid of some sort, and if anybody bent over the counter to look at their feet, they would see moccasins undoubtedly. Along the wall was a banner that said in a flowing cursive, 'What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.'

Camille felt old just by stepping in here.

A new siege of worries assaulted Camille when she looked up at the menu: she couldn't decide which coffee to get. She didn't want to get a mocha, which was the most expensive item on the menu, but also wanted to be more interesting than just plain coffee. Getting a chai latte would be so pretentious and hipster, but she really didn't like cappuccinos. Oh dear, the person in front of them was going up next, so that didn't leave her very much time to ponder on this existential crisis. Maybe she should ask about getting a drip and then when they say they don't have it, get a shot of espresso. But that sounded too snotty, and also she couldn't sip on an espresso and drag on their coffee time. Maybe she should just get what he was getting, but most likely he would let her go first. Iced coffee didn't even make sense for the colder night, and it was so clichéd. Why had she not thought about the various connotations of coffee orders before? It was such a complicated topic!

"What would you like?" The barista with the over-sized glasses asked them.

Spencer gestured for her to order first, and she blurted out, "A dirty chai latte please."

He ordered a simple coffee, and Camille wondered if he judged her for her order. She just had to say a _dirty_ chai latte, so high maintenance of her.

Perhaps she should relax a little. So she did what was most natural to her—"I never could decide what I feel about this place," she started conversationally as they made their way towards the waiting area. "Everything is so yuppie, then they have Nietzsche on the wall, but have somehow turned him into something kitschy."

"What would you put on there then?"

"To represent Nietzsche? Maybe something like 'In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops', perhaps. But that's altogether too gloomy for a coffee shop."

"Yet on January third, in 1889, he—"

"Saw the flogging of a horse on the streets of Turin—", she cut him off.

"And threw his arms around it to protect it, overturning—", not to be showed down, he cut her off in turn.

"His lifelong belief in the flourishing of higher men—", and the game went on.

"And that life only had value in strength. He was then an invalid, tended to—", between the two of them.

"By his mother and sister." She finished for both of them.

They looked at each other in breathless wonder.

At some point, somebody called out, "Coffee for Spencer."

Spencer started a little, but immediately recovered himself. Blinking rapidly, he turned away from her, lowering his gaze to the ground, gave a small puzzled frown, and said, "Right, right, my coffee. Coffee would be good."

"A good, simple cup of coffee clears the blinding fog over our senses. I'm just glad that my office offers free coffee, as bad as it may be, or else I would spend my entire earnings buying this stuff."

"I spend on average fifty three dollars per week on coffee. Usually lighter roasted, Ethiopian wet-processed beans. It's a general misconception that country defines the taste of beans, since the beans depend on processing and the local climate. But it's so deeply ingrained, that despite being arbitrary, it is a convenient guide when in a hurry."

She was mistaken: there was nothing simple about his coffee. "I normally just ask for a dark-roast, black."

"Ah, a fan of the tangy, bittersweet taste that comes from the temperature. You sacrifice the strength in caffeine for strength in taste. Very fitting."

Camille did prefer the stronger taste, but wondered how he could say that it was fitting after meeting her for the whole of ten minutes.

"Dirty chai," the woman called again. Camille thanked her and took the hot drink in her hands. She could see Spencer half turning towards her to say something, then deciding against it. She waited patiently, and this happened twice, before he finally made out, "I'm sorry, but what did you say your job was?"

"Ah, asking for what I live on now, are you?" She said, smiling cattily.

"Well I was informed that this was the socially accepted way to go about asking questions to strangers. Social niceties, you know." He made vague gestures with his hands to cover up his nervousness. This was the first direct question he had voiced in their encounter.

"You were informed correctly. I am a lawyer. Or at least trying very hard to be one."

He seemed to ponder it for a short moment. "I didn't know Nietzsche was required reading for precedence."

"Most definitely not. I majored in political philosophy back in college though—law schools _love_ philosophy majors." She remembered reading Descartes and Pascal and being surprised that they had other works beyond mathematics. She remembered reading Hegel and wanting to bring him back to life to kill him again. She remembered reading Hume then Kant and being angry with Kant's incessant endeavor to assert God's existence, for she was an agnostic. She remembered reading Marx and feeling like she was flowing in a river of poetics. She remembered Hannah Arendt and agreeing with her argument for the political conversations despite her dismissal of Freud. She remembered Schmitt and following him down the slippery slope towards totalitarian. She remembered discovering Heidegger's meadow of Being and weeping because of it. "My mind will never again be as frustrated and brilliant as it was during that period of my life," she summed up, surprising even herself with this admission.

"No, probably not," he agreed.

For the first time Camille wished that he might have softened his words a bit.

"A three-year-old's brain is twice as active as an adult's," he continued, "So there is really no comparison there. It's not the state of your brain that matters, it's what you do with it."

"Well," she laughed dryly, "I'm not exactly contributing much to humankind with my brainpower either."

"Lawyers are very important vessels of the judicial system."

"Don't put some noble virtue to my trade," Camille dismissed his attempt to make her feel better, "I started with law school because I wanted to win every argument."

"Again, very fitting."

This whole typecasting thing was really starting to get at her. If it was any other person playing Sherlock, Camille would have slammed a door at their face by now (preferably a real door), but Spencer—well, at this point she wouldn't put much past him. The guy couldn't be much older than thirty, and he had _three_ PhDs. And let us not talk about lesser achievements like college degrees and fluency in multiple languages and having read all the books that she studied without even majoring in it and—the list went on.

"So what exactly _do_ you think I'm like? So far you've said dark roasted coffee and an immature will to conquer all arguments are very _fitting_."

"You value your own tastes: you have one of those bags that have a brand plate on it. Your eyebrows are a shade darker than your hair, whereas it's usually the other way around, suggesting that your hair color is dyed. The roots, however, are a consistent color as your strands, a recent dye job. You also touch your hair when you pause in your speech. You care a lot about the presentation of yourself."

—She did dye it apricot blonde from a light brown.

"You say 'thank you' and 'please' almost subconsciously, so you've had good manners drilled into you by your parents. Most likely they are not divorced. You mentioned that they were touring Europe—that is probably their first vacation together in many years."

—They weren't the happiest couple for a while, but no divorce occurred. Things have been good for them now, and this vacation was definitely helping. Of course, it was their first trip together in a decade.

"You like your coffee dark-roasted and black, but you drink a dirty chai, so it seems that you don't enjoy the taste of coffee so much as need the signal that a black coffee sends."

—Oh how right he was, Camille always had a cup of black coffee on her desk. She hated the coffee in the lounge, but that wasn't the point.

"It makes sense that you are a lawyer, but you've just passed the assessment period. You give a slight pause right before you speak, no matter how thoughtless the comment is, so you habitually pay attention to what you say exactly. That comes from the profession, but it must had originated much earlier than law school for it to be so ingrained in you that even when you order a coffee you pause."

—She had always been fastidious about what she said, and even her jokes went through her mind once before she said it.

"You were always a straight A's student, but didn't always know that you wanted to go into law. Your thesis was on Nietzsche and his theory on the will to power. You moved here recently from a big city—your accent isn't from here—and it was a sacrifice that you consciously remind yourself of, so that you will be more motivated to keep up with the demanding hours—"

"New York, I come from New York," she interrupted him. "And I hate New York. I had a slightly lower than average GPA when applying to law school. I had just passed the bar exam, but am only two months into a six months long assessment. My dad was the stern one, but my mom was always overly doting. I pause before I talk because I have a habit of saying politically incorrect things with my college roommate, and have to stop myself now. I wrote my B.A. on Foucault's post-structuralist rejection of linguistic structure."

Spencer had never been so wrong about a person before, and to be frank, it was kind of fascinating to him. To be fair, she left out how Foucault famously called himself a Nietzschean, but that was beside the matter. He was still wrong about many things.

"But do go on," she continued, "You were actually spot on about a lot of things."

"Okay," he abided, "You watch enough TV shows to stay current. You really do have to win every argument. You're not married. You do wear the same necklace most of the time, so there might be a significant other."

He stopped when she chuckled. It took a moment before she realized that he wasn't making a joke, but was quite serious.

"Oh," she immediately saw the need to clarify, "Of course I don't have a significant other—I mean, otherwise why would I—er, that is—oh I just don't have a boyfriend is all."

A certain tension fell from his face. "Oh, oh good."

She raised her eyebrows at him again, but this time she was simply amused and secretly pleased.

"I meant," it was his turn to fumble with words. "I had meant that I am glad, not that it's good—it's just that I would like to learn more about you." He smiled at her weakly before suddenly adding, "If that's alright with you—I mean, if you would like to do that—er, to let me learn more—well, that is, by spending time together—not too much—I'm really bad at this aren't I?"

Camille sipped her dirty chai as his tirade went on, enjoying it more than she should have for his sake. "Spencer, if you were half as bad as you professed, then I wouldn't be agreeing with letting you 'learn' about me."

"Oh, so you are agreeing to it?"

"Yes."

"The spending time part, not particularly the learning—"

"Yes Spencer, let's get coffee together again sometimes." She paused. "Tomorrow."

"Oh." A slight pause, during which he made sure he didn't mishear her. "Tomorrow would be lovely."

* * *

A/N: Does Camille seem like she has enough personality? Is the part about philosophy distracting? Is this too much exposition (and too blatant) at this point of the story?

And of course what I actually mean is, anybody interested in beta-reading?


	4. Of the Social Contract

**Chapter 4**

**Of the Social Contract**

_Jean-Jacques Rousseau once said: 'Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.'_

Suspicion did not strike her until when she was inserted the key into her apartment door, and she mulled it over the entire evening.

She questioned how a thirty year old man could have three PhDs, one from CalTech of all places. He was either Patrick Bateman in the making or Stephen Hawking in his youth, and Camille didn't particularly fancy either. It just didn't occur to her to ask about it when he was talking—her suspicion of people was surprisingly low for her profession—but that was because Spencer was _there_. Somehow, the presence of the tall, lanky Spencer, with his hair flopping to the right in a distracting manner, and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, made everything sound so _reasonable_.

The doubt rolled inside her stomach and so she soothed it with ice cream—Haagen-Dazs came out with this new peanut butter ice cream pie flavored ice cream, and it was kind of miraculous.

Her work suffered a little the next day, it taking her approximately three seconds longer to focus in each time she turned a page. It probably accumulated to a time period much larger-sounding than three seconds, but Camille was not in the mood to figure it out.

But come seven thirty, she still stayed true to her promise and stood by the entrance to Wegmans' grocery.

The thing was: Spencer wasn't there.

Camille felt her heart sink, but also felt a sadistic realization towards herself, in a little voice that said '_See, too good, too smart to be true; a liar, a charlatan, a fraud who gets off on the look of awe in strangers' eyes—in real life, princes turn into frogs_—

"Sorry!" came the out-of-breath apology, and Camille found her vengeful thoughts interrupted by Spencer who apparently just ran here. "I'm so sorry," he repeated his apology, "My car broke down, and I had to take care of it before calling for a cab."

"No worries," Camille smiled genuinely: she was just glad that he was here.

"Let me buy you coffee at least."

"But of course," she agreed easily. "Even CalTech teaches one good manners, it seems."

They walked, exchanging their autobiographies. Camille allowed herself to be persuaded that he _was_ a genius, in a McArthur kind of way, and was born in Vegas. He was hesitant to give details beyond that, so Camille offered her own tidbits—that she had been born in a small hospital in Middlesex, before the name became synonymous with a hermaphrodite chasing the American Dream. She studied at NYU, despite being able to do better—Columbia, her dad said; Cornell, her mom said; but both forbid her to go do Dartmouth. She had been working for Baker & Hostetler for about half a year now.

He frowned lightly at the mention of spending her days in a cubicle under fluorescent lights, so she naturally inquired what the matter was. And that was how she teased out that his dad was an attorney, and he was not quite on great terms with the man.

"He does have a very sick cat though," Spencer said, "And that's kind of redeeming."

"Really?" Camille asked excitedly. "My dad had a very sick cat too! It got better once I started feeding it too much and it became just fat though."

The conversation then meandered, and instead of the past, they talked about everything from the preferred seat on an airplane—window versus aisle, and both of them were window people—to the general superiority of old Oxford editions of books. They lamented the woes of lost luggage—his trip to Virginia for training, which prompted him to update his wardrobe from baggy, teenage tees to cardigans, and her trip to Egypt, where she had to buy all the local garbs to guard against the desert sun and wind anyway. They discussed the natural next step in the plot to _Mad Men_—the fall of the heroic Don, whose era of the 50's had passed onto the new Jewish guy's generation—and disagreed on the merits of _Arrested Development_—Camille re-watched it every other week but Spencer just couldn't see the humor. They then got over their dispute with their shared dislike of the Christmas times, although Spencer's distaste was for the spike in crime rates, and Camille just hated it because her family never got a Christmas tree. They then giggled over this advertisement poster that was badly Photoshopped.

By the time coffee came into their hands, Camille had fallen in love.

It was a sudden realization, one that came at the moment Spencer tucked his wavy brown hair behind his right ear, eyes cast down shyly. He was saying something, but Camille could only focus on how adorably dorky he was, with the way he anxiously began his sentences, rushed as if he expected to be interrupted at any second, and how his cardigans always fit his torso in a scholarly manner, and his other hand was fiddling with the edge of the pocket. Her heart surged and beat faster, although it might have been the effect of the double shot of espresso.

She felt at ease, for the first time in a long time, and enjoyed the bubbling glow. She was too old to take the heady feeling for granted, but too young to have lost the longing for being overwhelmed with feeling for another human citizen.

Caught up in this oddly introspective moment, she failed to speak for half a minute.

Spencer was looking at her, caught between worry for upsetting her somehow, and just worrying in general.

Camille smiled apologetically, although she did not apologize. "It's an unusually warm day for this time of the year," she commented.

Spencer remarked that indeed it was nice.

Then a short paused, during which Camille pondered how to ask him to a walk and hoped that he was thinking on how to ask her the same.

Without a topic, Camille uneasily wound and rewound her hands around the coffee cup, not knowing where they belonged. The awkward silence left both struggling to say something, to broach a relevant subject; yet, what was there to say? Camille had never before felt so out of her element—usually words flowed out her mouth like a river. But love began and ended with awkwardness when being alone—she remembered reading that somewhere.

In the end Camille turned to him with a brilliant smile (if she said so herself) and said: "The coffee is too hot, perhaps a walk around the park would cool it?"

Spencer, in his typical manner, replied, "Yes, through the styrofoam cup the coffee would cool at approximately 4.7 Fahrenheit a minute, given the outside temperature of around 75 and your bodily contact with it."

Because it was so typical, Camille was unsure if that was a gentle rejection. She decided to take her chance, and maintaining her brilliant smile (not without some effort), she asked, "Would you like to walk around the park then?"

"There is a park nearby?"

"Yes, would you like to go there?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Spencer nodded enthusiastically and followed her.

And Camille was made happy—the best about love, she thought, was how easily happiness came.

"So Spencer, what exactly do you do, with this massive intellect of yours?" she asked.

"I work at the Behavioral Analysis Unit. I profile criminals."

It was something that Camille would have found macabre a day ago, but now was utterly fascinating to her. "So … you use psychology?"

"In a sense. We do both behavioral and investigative analysis. When we get invited to the local jurisdictions, we act as both consultant and agent."

Camille had a sinking feeling that when he gave testimony, on the other side of the court would be somebody like her, defending the very criminals that they were trying to convict. So she directed the conversation towards _him_ instead of his job, with a sentence that never, ever failed: "You must be really good at it."

"I am," his chest puffed up and Camille thought that it was utterly heart-melting how cute he was. "I'm very good at my job."

"No doubt," she cooed, watching the way his lips formed words. The heat of the coffee burnt through the paper cup holder, but Camille forgot about her hands.

"It helps to have eidetic memory, reading speed of twenty thousand per minute."

She imagined that it would—and not just at his job. Although she didn't envy him—it must have _sucked_ in high school. "You could probably do my job—and a million others—very well. Life of the mind, right?" she joked.

Except he didn't take it as a joke. "Indeed, I find that there is a comfort in learning. I'm considering taking up another BA as a side project."

"Don't do Law, _please_."

He frowned in confusion, "Why not? Don't you like it?"

"As much as anybody likes their profession," she answered, "But I would hate to see you know more in a week than I after years of education and practice." As she talked on about law, her mind was planning on inviting him for a drink at a bar.

He took her comment as the compliment that she had intended it to be, and happily smiled. "Perhaps Economics then."

She made a face: "That sounds useful." Economics was one auxiliary subject that she was forced to take and had a hard time in—thankfully, it was only two requirements, and her boyfriend at the time was an Economics major.

Their date—was it a date?—was interrupted by a phone call.

"Sorry," Spencer took out his phone and frowned at it, "I have to take this."

Camille gestured with her hand that it was fine.

The conversation was short—it was mostly just the other person talking. She could make out some bubbly female voice talking at a hundred miles per hour. Spencer just answered with a curt if tired "I'm on my way" and then hung up.

He looked at her with guilt in his eyes, "I'm really sorry, but I have to go."

"Work?" she asked delicately.

"Yeah," he tucked his hair again, and Camille forgave him for _everything_.

"The General Will calls for you," she joked.

He cracked a smile, "Thanks."

"But hey," she stopped him before he could actually leave, "I'm hitting the bar with a couple of friends tonight, do you want to come if you're done with work?"

"I'll see," he said, but his fidgeting made it clear that it was 'no I won't' kind of 'I'll see'.

"Oh," she said, disappointed. "Maybe some other day."

"Yeah, that sounds good."

"Okay. Well, bye," she had to be the one to give the official word of goodbye.

"Bye," he said, and quickly ran off.

Well, Camille thought as she took the first sip of her cold coffee, a woman should never try to compete with the public duty.

* * *

Author's Note: For the purposes of this story, Maeve never existed. I really don't want to deal with post-lover's-death, she-was-the-love-of-my-life Reid. Also the INFERIORITY complex and insecurity that comes with competing with a dead woman? Ugh, so messy.

This story came before the Maeve episodes aired, and so the whole philosophy thing was not taken from the producers. But great minds think alike, I suppose!

(Although really. Thomas Merton wasn't even a real philosopher. He was a bloody monk.)


End file.
